London, 1992

"So, this is where you work?"

Had it always been this way, where he said things that were stupid? Aye, I work here, seeing as I'm wearing the uniform everyone else is and I'm in the middle of sweeping up hair from the floor?

Alfie had materialised, standing beside her in a way she wasn't sure she liked or disliked.

"Mick, mate!" he announced. "Katrina's told me a lot about you! You're a chef, right?"

Mick's glance swept up and down him.

"Yup. Are you finished, Catty? I'll take you out for a drink if you want."

Oof, it wasn't friendly, and it didn't sound as if he wanted Alfie to come with them. The thought, though, of having Mick all to herself for the first time since he'd arrived in London filled her with joy, and stopped her from saying Alfie could show them some of the best bars nearby.

She shot him an apologetic look and mouthed the word, "sorry". Alfie shrugged.

"Finish up now if you like," he told Katrina. "Rick's not coming back this evening, and I'll cover for you."

She accepted the offer gratefully and hurried to the back room to take off her tunic and touch up her make-up. Working at Chevelure Chic had taught her subtlety when it came to what you could do with pencils, powder and lipsticks. Heaven forbid that Mick think she'd made an effort to impress him. She applied a light coating of mascara, dusted her face with bronzer and re-applied lip gloss.

Alfie was asking Mick questions when she returned and getting monosyllabic answers. Katrina wanted to shake Mick. Alfie would comment about it the next day, and for some reason, his opinion was important to her.

"Go to Madame Lucy's," he said. "It's on Wardour Street, and it does great cocktails. You'll get two for one because it's happy hour."

Out on the street, the pavements were busy. It was five o'clock and the rush hour had begun half-an-hour ago. People streamed past them, heels clacking, in their hurry to get to tube and bus stops. It felt strange to be here in London with Mick. The setting for the two of them had always been rural. With an urban backdrop, she felt out of place in a way she hadn't since first arriving in the city.

Despite its exotic name, Madam Lucy's looked like your typical London pub from the outside, all dark wood, gold lettering in the windows and barrels sprouting greenery. Inside, it was the same—brasses, decorated mirrors, dark wood, maroon-velvet upholstery and booths.

There was the usual group of middle-aged men sat at the bar and glaring at anyone under the age of 30 invading what they saw as their space, and the young, glossy just finished work crowd, clamouring for cocktails and fun. The fug of cigarette smoke competed with various perfumes. Katrina thought she could smell Opium and Poison. Honestly, some folks were still stuck in the 80s.

Mick told her to grab one of the booths while he got the drinks in. She slid into the booth farthest away from the bar. Perhaps such a private setting would encourage Mick to open up and talk to her.

He was back a few minutes later, muttering grumpily about London prices, happy hour or not. He slid a pink-coloured drink across the table to her and sat down.

"What have we got then?" Katrina asked. His own drink looked much more masculine, served in a crystal tumbler and pale-golden in colour.

"Whisky sour for me. A cosmopolitan for you. It's cranberry juice and vodka."

And terrifically strong. The first gulp she took almost made her choke. Still, she could feel the hit of it spreading through her body. Who knew what the night might bring? Its possibilities began to unfurl inside her.

"What happened today?"

A month earlier, a TV production company filming in Edinburgh for a documentary series on things to do in the UK's cities had celebrated the wrap-up of work with lunch in The Castle Inn, where Mick worked.

So impressed had they been by the standard of the food, the company's head honcho had gone into the kitchen to thank the chef in person. The Castle Inn's proprietor hadn't been there that day, but Mick was busy clearing up, wiping down surfaces.

When he turned at the sound of the woman singing The Castle Inn's praises, she stopped speaking and stared at him.

"Have you ever wanted to be on TV?" she asked, and he shook his head, taken aback by the line of questioning.

"Really?" The voice was incredulous. Apparently, when you worked in television, you thought everyone wanted to be on it.

"I cannae act," he replied, pulling off his chef's hat. The gesture wasn't lost on the woman, who had tipped her head to one side.

"I'm not talking about acting. I mean, presenting."

The idea, she said later, had come to her there and then. People were ready for a new breed of celebrity chef. Delia Smith was fine in her own way, but she was staid and boring. Wouldn't audiences tune in to watch a super-sexy guy chop, stir and sizzle for them instead? We'll tear up the rule books when it comes to cooking was how she described it. Was he interested?

Mick nodded cautiously. He'd been at The Castle Inn for a few years now. Sure, the job was enjoyable, but there was nowhere he could go with it. The head chef wasn't retiring anytime soon, and there were no prospects for Mick unless he set out on his own.

The woman—Dee Marchmont—told him she'd pitch the idea to the TV channels and get back to him. Four weeks later, she told him to come to London. They needed to see what he was like in front of a camera.

Mick ran his hand through his hair now, the movement causing it to stick up around his head like a halo. He did look angelic, that blonde hair and those blue, blue eyes. They sparkled as he looked at Katrina.

"They filmed me. Chopping stuff up. It took ages."

It was a gripe, but a happy one. The eyes told her so.

"I had to say what I was doing. That was the hardest bit. I've been cooking for years, and I do it automatically. I don't think about what I'm doing."

"Did they show you the film?"

Mick nodded. "It looks totally different when you see it on the telly. There was this counter set up in the middle of a room with a sink on it. There were cameras and microphones everywhere, and all these people standing around looking at you. But when you see it on the screen, it looks just like a kitchen with one person in it."

He took another sip of his whisky sour.

"When will you hear?"

"I dunno. Dee reckons BBC2 or Channel 4 might be interested. I havenae told Marty about it. He thinks I'm on holiday. He'd do his nut."

Marty was the proprietor of The Castle Inn, a nasty, shouty man Katrina had met the once.

She bought the next round, choosing the same drinks. The vodka had made her alert, and the thoughts raced through her mind.

"Are you shagging that Alfie?"

The question startled her at first but then the possibilities of the night that had begun to unfurl earlier gathered pace. To ask such a thing must mean he was jealous, surely?

"No. We're just good friends," she replied and held his gaze as he looked back at her. Those blue eyes were still sparkling, and there was something in the air between them. She could feel it. It was if they were both hovering either side of a line, waiting for the other to put a foot down on the other side.

She drank a mouthful of the cosmopolitan, swirling it around so she could pout at him. His expression didn't change, but she thought the pupils did, enlarging slightly as he looked at her.

"Do you want to go dancing?" Under the table, he kicked her feet. Then, his foot stayed there between hers.

"Okay then."

She got to her feet and extended a hand. She and Mick had danced together numerous times over the years. He was an incredible dancer, his body moving in perfect time to whatever was playing. In crowded London nightclubs, they'd be pushed so close together she could rub up and down him to her heart's content.

"I know this club that opens early."

Outside, the crowds had lessened only slightly. The weekend started unofficially on a Thursday, and those people going home had gone. Now, the heels click-clacking on pavements were high and the skirts short. Small groups milled around, conversations loud and drunken as people talked about where they were going to go.

Mick, Katrina noticed to her annoyance, made little attempt to hide his appreciation of the London ladies who swirled around, hips that swayed and chests thrust forward.

One of the loud, drunken groups had stopped in front of them.

"Katrina?"

Alfie? Well, it was a Thursday, which meant happy hour around the Soho purveyors of alcohol and other pleasures. He would be here.

He was with two people she recognised, Dottie and Natalie from the salon. Why did that bother her? The three of them had turned to face her and Mick, all of them unsteady on their feet. Happy hour had clearly been taken advantage of.

"Is this your fella, Katrina?" Natalie asked. She was unfriendly most of the time, but tonight she must have decided personal questions were a-okay.

Silence. Katrina longed for Mick to say, "Yes, I am!", and maybe add, "Am I no' a lucky sod?"

"Just a friend," she replied. To her irritation, Natalie immediately shook out her blonde hair behind her and fastened her gaze on Mick.

"Hello, soldier. What's your name then?"

Mick took his time replying, eyeing her up in a way so calculating, you almost felt like betting on how soon it would take him to get her into bed. Clearly, that was what he was working out. The soaring high Katrina had felt when he'd asked her if she was shagging Alfie plummeted. Her soul was sucked to the soles of her feet.

She should be used to this by now, she thought—the visceral pain she always experienced when she was with him, but it was so long since she'd last seen him she'd forgotten how much it stabbed and burned.

Alfie threw his arms open. "Hey! You should come for a drink wiv us. Nat knows this great place."

Mick agreed right away. Katrina sighed to herself. Oh, whatever. Let him get pissed, and end up sleeping in and missing his appointment tomorrow morning. What did she care?

They headed off, walking in the direction of Broadwick Street, Natalie firing questions at Mick about what he was doing in London and cooing in amazement when he told her about Dee Marchmont's plans for him.

The route took them past the Groucho Club—a long queue outside, groups of twos and threes mostly, and most people dressed to the nines. Force of habit made Katrina look at them all, assessing what she would do with outfits and hairstyles. There weren't many that met her approval, though a woman at the front of the queue caught her eye.

She was quite a bit older than them—early thirties perhaps—with dark spiky hair, dark-kohled eyes, plum-coloured lips and she wore skin-tight jeans, with high cork wedges. When she saw the group, she waved.

"Mick, Mick, over here!"

Mick swore. "That's Dee. I promised her I was off home for an early night so I'd be fighting fit for tomorrow."

"Well, she'd no' setting a good example, is she?" Katrina added, hoping she didn't sound tart. Nothing worse than a girl who made snarky comments about a guy's every female acquaintance. Daisy had read that in a magazine and passed it on. She thought those magazines held the key to all worldly wisdom.

"Are these your friends?" Dee asked, pointing at everyone.

Natalie jumped in with a fervent "yes", and Dee turned to the bouncer guarding the door. Seconds later, and they were all in the club, climbing the stairs to the cloakroom. Dee waved away their attempts to try to pay the receptionist. "I'm allowed a certain number of guests every month."

Inside, it was rather like the pub Katrina and Mick had been in earlier, but on a much grander scale. The bar was central, and people were packed around it, while the velvet-upholstered booths were bigger, the seats softer and the tables made of hardwood and polished enough that you could see your reflection in them. Having seen how smeared her make-up looked, Katrina jumped up and made her way to the Ladies.

Dee came in after her, leaning back against the wall and sighing.

"You're from his hometown, aren't you?" she asked, lighting up a cigarette and offering one to Katrina.

"Yes." She'd bitten back the automatic 'aye'.

"What's it like to grow up in a small place?" They were stood either side of each other in front of the mirror, a continuous pane of glass that stretched from one wall of the loos to the other. Katrina retrieved her make-up bag and began to reapply her lipstick.

"Nice, a lot of the time. Shit, at others."

"Will you ever go back?"

"No!" The suddenness and ferocity of the remark startled them both.

"Fair enough." Dee dumped her handbag next to the sink beside her and rifled among its contents. She raised her eyes, looking at Katrina in the mirror.

"I've got a bit of Charlie. Fancy some?"

Oh, why not? It might make her feel as if she belonged. She followed Dee into a cubicle and watched as she took a small twist of foil out of her bag, tipping some of its contents onto the top of the cistern.

She chopped out four lines and took out a thin silver straw. "You first, lovie."

Katrina was a coke virgin, but she'd seen enough films to know what to do. Finger on one nostril, straw up the nose. Snort up.

And...whoosh.

Dee took the straw from her and snorted up the last two lines. She put her finger to her mouth as they heard someone enter the cubicle next to them. There was the sound of pissing, and then flushing.

When they heard the main door open and close, Dee unlocked the cubicle they were in. "Let's go. Don't tell the others. I don't have enough for everyone."

Natalie had managed to inveigle herself next to Mick, and she was whispering in his ear, while Alfie and Dottie were dancing. "Dance wiv us!" Alfie grabbed her arm as Katrina walked past, and she joined them. Might as well, as her heart was racing and she needed to move. Speed did roughly the same to you, pinging you up onto your feet and making you restless. She found, too, that she didn't care about Mick anymore. Let Natalie have him. She was welcome to him. Besides, after tonight he'd forget all about her.

Katrina had always been an amazing dancer. She moved instinctively, her body able to pick up the rhythm of a song so that she looked like the embodiment as she danced. Growing up, this had always been her party trick—at parties, at discos and wherever there was a sound system, Katrina would dance, and people would watch, unable to tear their eyes from her.

The Groucho Club housed a much more sophisticated audience, but she attracted stares anyway. Alfie was your typical lad dancer. He shuffled about a bit, and he sang along, but he looked as if he was enjoying himself too much to care if he was good or not. The eyes, though, they took note of every shimmering sway.

Three tracks later and about to give up—she desperately needed a drink of water—Mick pushed himself onto the floor and stood in front of her. Mick had often been her dance partner at those long-ago parties and discos. The two of them made a beautiful spectacle. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Natalie, eyes narrowed and face screwed up.

She and Mick had double the effect on the crowds. They all glanced their way, stared for a few seconds and then looked away quickly. It didn't do to stare at the Grouch Club, hang-out for celebs and London's glitterati.

The dance floor was crowded now, and Mick and Katrina had been pushed close together. That soaring high was back again, and she pressed against him and then stepped back, grinning.

Mission accomplished.

He took her hand. "Let's get out of here," and they threaded their waythrough the throngs. Had she looked back, she would have seen Natalie's scowland Alfie's rapid blinking.